Raining on the parade of existing enterprise communication services, public cloud infrastructure provider AWS has today announced that it has launched Amazon Chime. It is another communication tool which brings voice/video calling and instant messaging services to business users.
AWS is now taking a step beyond its infrastructure roots and steadily entering the software-as-a-service (SaaS) ecosystem. Amazon Chime is being introduced as a unified and frustration-free communications platform. It aims to deliver high-quality video, voice, screen sharing and messaging services to participants in a virtual meeting. Also, joining the meeting is dead simple, as Chime pings all users about the video call and they can accept the invitation at just the click of a button — no PIN required.
Talking about the launch, Gene Farrell, Vice President of Enterprise Applications at AWS, says,
Most meeting applications or services are hard to use, deliver bad audio and video, require constant switching between multiple tools to do everything they want and are way too expensive.
Amazon Chime delivers frustration-free meetings, allowing users to be productive from anywhere. And with no ongoing maintenance or management fees, Amazon Chime is a great choice for companies that are looking for a solution to meetings that their employees will love to use.
This is Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) latest effort to not only extend the capabilities of its own professional suite but also kill competition in the process. Amazon Chime has been launched as a direct competitor to Skype for Business and Google Hangouts, who’re currently reigning enterprise communication. But, the cloud provider could also cause some damage to other enterprise tools such as GoToMeetings and Slack among others.
Amazon Chime is being made available to users across all platforms including Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android devices. The said tool is not only being directly made available to enterprise professionals but it’ll also be available through APN partners Level 3 and Vonage in the second quarter of 2017. Chime will be added to their suite of unified communications and collaboration solutions. Talking about the same, Anthony Christie, Chief Marketing Officer at Level 3 says,
With Amazon Chime, delivered by Level 3, our customers have a clear advantage. They’ll have access to an agile collaboration platform, powered by AWS, with the reliability and security of Level 3’s global network. Level 3’s consultative end-to-end support model is designed to simplify the move to the cloud.
As for the pricing, Chime can be used for free but the experience will be restricted to two users. The Plus edition of the Chime service comes with user management, Active Directory (AD) support and 1GB of message retention at $2.50 per user per month. The Pro edition, on the other hand, includes screen sharing, unlimited VoIP calling, and ability to add over 100 video participants for $15 per user per month.
Amazon Chime is aiming to become a replacement instead of an alternative for your current communication service by offering a seamless, synchronized experience across desktops, iOS, and Android devices.
